2.1.
New Content
The Midnight Season 1 launch has arrived, and with it a new tier set, three new raids and the start of the Mythic+ and PVP seasons. If you
want to check out any of the new content, make sure to head over to the dedicated sections!
2.2.
Class Tuning
Since Midnight launch, there has been no class-tuning for Restoration Druid yet however we are an extremely likely
candidate for nerfs! Blizzard previously mentioned, that there will be little to no tuning until March 17th,
so expect changes over the opening weeks of the season. We will ensure
to update this guide as soon as new changes occur.
When it comes to tuning adjustments, our next planned pass is expected to arrive
with the Midnight Season 1 launch on March 17. Our next pass will follow immediately
afterwards utilizing data gathered during the week Heroic difficulties are available;
these changes will go live with the launch of Mythic raid difficulty and Mythic+ on
March 24.
Beyond these dates, we will look to perform more tuning passes based on data gathered
during the starting weeks of Mythic difficulty for Season 1 and the March on Quel’Danas
available the week of March 31.For these two passes we err on the side of caution with
the amount of tuning we do until their respective Mythic end-bosses die to avoid being
overly disruptive to progression. After these key dates we will have several check-in passes
planned roughly a month apart. Once players obtain higher item level and better optimized gear
sets, the throughput of several specs will shift up or down relative to others and we feel
it’s important to be diligent in looking at the current state of class balance as time goes on.
2.3.
Midnight Changes for Restoration Druid
Midnight brings with it a massive overhaul to Restoration Druid and
healing as a whole. It also includes sweeping UI changes which affect Restoration Druid
more than a lot of other specs. The overall objective is to make the game more accessible
by removing how many addons you need to play the game competitively, as well as making
specs themselves easier to get into. They did succeed in making specs easier to play,
though the user interface changes have had a disastrous roll out so far.
2.4.
New Apex Talents
The new talent addition in Midnight is the "Apex Node". It acts as a tier 3 spec talent
node but you can put up to 4 points in it. Ours is called Everbloom and it does the following:
- Point 1 (
Everbloom): 
Lifebloom stacks up to 3 times, stacking every 5 seconds.
- Points 2 and 3 (
Everbloom): 15/30% of Lifebloom healing splashes to two nearby allies.
- Point 4 (
Everbloom): When you consume 
Soul of the Forest, your Lifebloom blooms
5 times in quick succession.
Our Apex node is extremely powerful in Mythic+, but only on the edge of viability in Raid. It excels
at making one target (whoever has your Lifebloom near immortal) which is very useful when
you only have five people to heal.
2.4.1.
Hero Talent Changes
Both hero trees got three new nodes for the expansion and you are able to take all of them at level 90.
The 
Wildstalker tree plays very similarly to The War Within. It still focuses on
putting out 
Symbiotic Bloom and offering both healing and large healing taken increases
to those with the buff. The proc rate of Symbiotic Blooms has been nerfed a little bit,
and there are some new generic heal-over-time increases like 
Patient Custodian. It
continues to be an extremely strong tree in Mythic+ but expect it to be a bit weaker in raid.
Keeper of the Grove sees larger changes due to the 
Grove Guardians ability now
being passive instead of an active button. Grove Guardians now proc whenever you cast
Swiftmend and 
Wild Growth. This simplifies Keeper of the Grove gameplay by
removing the need to stack charges and drop them all at once during burst. The flavor of the tree
remains, but it should feel like it's giving you more straightforward healing increases now instead
of requiring specific gameplay to maximize. You also get a lot more Grove Guardians overall
than you did before. The new hero tree talents in Midnight also give you even more Swiftmend
casts which will play well given how many effects are now attached to it.
2.4.2.
Healing Changes
There were two major changes to Restoration Druid in Midnight:
- Many small heal-over-time effects were removed like Spring Blossoms and Cultivation.
With the user interface changes, tracking many HoTs at once has become burdersome so
they removed a bunch of smaller ones. These usually didn't have gameplay interactions
anyway. Our Mastery effect (
Mastery: Harmony) was buffed significantly to
compensate the loss of HoTs.
- Our frequent cooldowns are now available less often.
Flourish was turned into a passive
that procs when you cast Tranquility instead which turns its former one minute cooldown
into three. This might seem quite bad but Blizzard have pruned healing cooldowns across all
specs. The goal is for healing to be based around which rotational buttons you press instead
of countering every mechanic with a major healing cooldown.
Despite all of the changes, your rotation won't be greatly different. You will still prepare
for upcoming damage with 
Rejuvenation, and you will still pay off your ramp by casting
Regrowth as damage hits (to take advantage of 
Abundance). You'll continue to maintain
Lifebloom and 
Efflorescence (though 
Lifetreading makes the latter easier) and
Swiftmend and Wild Growth remain key rotational casts.
2.4.3.
Midnight User Interface Changes
Midnight completely revamps the games UI by adding heavy restrictions
to a lot of addons. This means that addons you might have used for decades like Grid2, Cell, or
Weak Auras might no longer be available and even if they are they'll be in a much more restricted
format. In exchange for the loss of a lot of combat addons, Blizzard have been working on the base
user interface. It still leaves a lot to be desired though.
Wildstalker
Keeper of the Grove
